(avoiding) the travesty of the commons tom gruber co-founder and cto, realtravel.com tomgruber.org
TRANSCRIPT
(Avoiding) the Travesty of the Commons
Tom GruberCo-Founder and CTO, RealTravel.com
tomgruber.org
The Promise of the People-Powered Web
More people know more things. More people have more diverse
perspectives and assumptions. Collectively we can know more.
But...• When is More Better?• If you build it, will they come?
The Influence of Collective Knowledge
source http://alexa.com
The Influence of Collective Knowledge
logo source http://wikipedia.com
Same Technology
http://flickr.com/photos/fuzheado/21039745/
Different Result
http://flickr.com/photos/ross/20509165/
Same People, Same Technology
creation noise
source http://istockphoto.com
Collective Knowledge is Real
FAQ-o-Sphere (self service Q&A forums) A-list Blogosphere for politics and tech Product reviews for gadgets and hotels Amateur Academia Collaborative filtering for books and music Social photo sharing
...and can be a real pain
IP looting in music Automated blog spam Marketplace of fraudulent reviews
The Art and Science of Collective Knowledge
Timing, luck, and vision are critical, but...
Claim:Design principles can influence the result.
Case Study: RealTravel
When planning travel, people want to benefit from experience of people who have been there.
Let’s do this on a global scale.
Problem 1: Motivating Participation
Why should I share my feedback and advice about my travel experience with strangers?
So I can share it with friends and family. With style.
Principle of motivation:Enlightened Self Interest
Design services that reward individual behavior that has global benefit.
Communicate the value proposition to people who would recognize that value.
Motivators:What Powers “People-Powered”
entertainment value of participation social connection ego / ambition altruism
• Design for these motivators.• Target audiences with these motivators.
De-motivators
Awkward or time-consuming UI Nontrivial learning curve
except for games Lack of positive feedback for desired
behavior.
• Design to avoid these de-motivators.• Target audiences who don’t mind.
Problem 2: How to reach the right people?
Participants are not necessarily the same population as those who benefit from their contributions.
Participants are motivated differently Travel bloggers care about trips. Travel researchers care about destinations.
Design user experiences for targeted audiences.
Growth Phases of Social Sites
Contributors Learners
Viral is not the only way
OurStory is a place for sharing life stories
Targeted marketing campaign to grow participant base
6 weeks
source Andy Halliday, CEO OurStory, personal communication
Problem 3: How to Harvest Value
Value of aggregate must be much greater than sum of parts need value for both contributors and learners
Quality metrics of aggregate content are different than for individuals Completeness/coverage matters Need “best first” criteria Bad apples can spoil the batch
Creating Aggregrate Value:“Mash-up” with structured data
Backbone of Web 2.0 offering is competence in domain-specific data see O’Reiily paper
The aggregate site creates unique value by tightly integrating user contributions of understructured content with centrally managed structured data.
ref: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
UI Technique: Pivot Browsing
RealTravel manages an authoritative central database of destinations (places).
Contributors place their content into the destination hierarchy.
The combination offers travel researchers powerful browsing and search capabilities.
Contextual Tagging
Tags are bottom up labels, words without context.
A structured data framework provides context.
Combining context and tags creates insightful slices through the aggregate content.
Problem 4: Guiding Behavior
Question: Why should a user do something for the benefit of the community?
Answer: Wrong question.
Approach: Reduce friction of useful behavior.
UI Technique: Snap to Grid
Observation: Left to their own, users won’t produce a consistent database.
Technique: Elicit their data in the context of structured data – let them snap to grid.
Inherit structure data to the unstructured contribution – provide value from the grid.
Group Discussion: Techniques of Design for Participation
Motivating participation answer faqs in the context of the wiki connecting it to the social group that exist competitiveness – score keeping
Reaching targeted audiences Harvesting value Guiding behavior toward global benefit
make it easy to upload and share itinerary
Thank You
RealTravel.com
tomgruber.org